The novel's story is set in a dystopian future, and chronicles the experiences of protagonist Alan Corday aboard a starship called the Hound of Heaven as he copes with the travails of time dilation from traveling at near light speed.

Jazz musician Chick Corea released a 2004 album of the same name with music inspired by the story, and Galaxy Press reissued a hardcover edition of Hubbard's novel the same year as a form of cross marketing.

The ship is commanded by a charismatic leader named Captain Jocelyn, who tells Corday to use his skills to help the Hound of Heaven in its travels between Earth and space colonies in other star systems.

Corday resists mingling with the culture aboard the starship, but when he returns home after travels with the Hound of Heaven he finds that his fiancée has aged and has trouble with her memory.

The jazz musician Chick Corea released a CD of the same name with music inspired by the story in 2004,[10][11] and Galaxy Press reissued a hardcover edition of Hubbard's novel the same year as a form of cross marketing.

[12][13] According to Publishers Weekly, Corea's soundtrack to the novel was issued by Galaxy Press to give the company's "enormous marketing muscle" the ability to "tap into the vast Hubbard fan base".

"[20] Barnes & Noble's Explorations editor, Paul Goat Allen, put the book at number eight on his list of the top ten science fiction/fantasy novels for 2004, writing: "After more than half a century, 'To the Stars' is just as timely, just as awe-inspiring, just as profoundly moving as it was in 1950.

"[21] In a review of the book for the website SF Site, Georges T. Dodds writes: "To the Stars, besides being among the earliest hard science fiction works to consider time-dilation effects in long-distance near-light-speed space travel, is a pretty entertaining story.

"[22] Writing in the Marburg Journal of Religion, Marco Frenschkowski of the University of Mainz described the book as a "melancholy tale about interplanetary travel and the effects of time dilation".

[3] University of California, Irvine physics professor and science fiction author Gregory Benford wrote positively of the book in an article for the science fiction website "Crows Nest": "Writers had used Einstein's special relativity theory before in stories, but Hubbard brought to his novel the compressed story telling and pulp skills that had stood him in over a decade of professional writing.